Theo Wargo
For the previous few days, critic and comic Ashley Ray, and Tony-nominated playwright Jeremy O. Harris have been clashing on Twitter about Harris’ controversial Slave Play—a satire involving rape, mammy costumes, extreme use of the N-word, and abusive visuals, together with a Black lady compelled to eat cantaloupe off the bottom. It lately broke the file for probably the most Tony Award nominations in historical past (earlier than going 0-for-12 in awards).
Having learn Slave Play, which is a couple of group of interracial couples taking part in “Antebellum Sexual Efficiency Remedy” as a method of resolving the Black companions’ intimacy considerations, I haven’t been all for seeing it carried out. However the situation in Harris’ change along with his critics has not been about whether or not or not the play is the “provocative,” “humorous, scalding, stroll alongside the boundary between black and white in America” that mainstream critics noticed it as, however about the place a Black lady can specific her real emotions about Slave Play and its portrayal of girls with out the playwright freaking out. The reply, clearly, is not any.
Though each Harris and Ray establish as Black, in conditions the place gender and race are on the root of the manufacturing, intersectionality issues. It’s one factor for a Black man to make a play that includes race, however when he makes use of Black girls as a supply of sexual exploitation, they open themselves as much as a unique degree of expectation, duty, and rationalization.
Taking up a play that exhibits "no consideration for black girls.”
Tommaso Boddi
The dust-up began after Ray noticed Slave Play with Black TV author Kyra Jones, and tweeted a viral thread about why she took situation with Harris’ script and the way she felt it “has no consideration for black girls.”
Ray references a line—certainly one of many cringey ones within the play—during which a Black feminine character named Kaneisha says “the elders don’t care that you're a demon, they lay with them too… they only need you to comprehend it” in reference to her interracial relationship with a white man.
“My elders, my ancestors didn't ‘lay’ with demons,” Ray tweets. “They had been compelled by demons, raped by demons, harm by demons, a few of them had been kids, little women who had every part taken from them by demons in a means i can by no means expertise having consensual intercourse with a white individual.” (Jones, who has written for exhibits together with ABC’s Queens and Hulu’s Woke, replied to the thread including her personal considerations about Slave Play as a Black lady.)
In response, Harris, who has garnered a status on different tasks he has labored on for being oversensitive about criticism, went on the assault, accusing Ray of “blatantly misrepresenting staging, viewers interactions, & my writing for likes.”
Then he tried to dunk, saying it’s “all the time nice to have loud detractors interact your work however I really feel like I ought to pay @theeashleyray for the sheer breadth of her free PR.”
Whereas he boasted concerning the play’s gross sales, he didn't interact with Ray’s considerations, which amplified people who a number of Black critics, amongst others, had concerning the play. As Ray replied, “i by no means stated individuals shouldn’t see it, i believe ppl ought to interact with it themselves. it simply so occurs lots of people thought i articulated one thing they hated”
As an alternative of participating with or quietly taking in Ray’s criticism, Harris pulled the look-how-many-people-saw-it-so-it-must-be-good card that individuals with some degree of fame usually use to keep away from accountability and duty for his or her work—form of like somebody saying that “Inexperienced Guide should not have been unhealthy as a result of it gained the Oscar for Finest Image.”
So how does Harris skip previous Ray’s considerations concerning the misogynoir and disrespect for Black ancestry in his play? He posted a TikTok video of a sea of Black individuals, together with plenty of influential of us, who watched his present, and tweeted about going into Ray’s DMs to personally invite her to return see it. Once more, he defensively performed the “look who likes it” card moderately than defend his work on the deserves in response to considerations expressed by a Black lady who he’d invited to see and have interaction with it.
Harris’s deflections reveal that he’s solely searching for extra followers, not vital thinkers. Think about creating one thing so visceral, uncomfortable, and taboo after which anticipating individuals to solely reward it. If Slave Play is meant to impress feelings in individuals, why be so rattling delicate concerning the responses? Particularly when the supply of that frustration is coming from Black girls, in a play that focuses on them.
Harris actually made a play about interracial couples participating in problematic intercourse below the context of slavery—how within the fuck does he not count on to be challenged on that?